Offerings
by KCousland
Summary: Written for the Valentine's day challenge on the Cheeky monkeys forum.  Someone's in love with Kallian and the time has come for him to make his feelings known.  With a little help from friends.  One-shot.


_Author's notes: This is a one-shot unrelated to my other stories. It is a response to the Valentine's day challenge on the Cheeky monkeys of Dragon Age forum. If you don't know what that is, it's this amazing place where authors from this site exchange tips, ideas, praises and constructive criticism, and a lot of silliness. Mostly the silliness, in fact. Check it out! Here's the link: ht tp: / / ww w. darkstorm. co. uk / cmda (remove the spaces). A huge thanks to Jinx1983 and randomwittering for this amazing forum! _

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"Here. Do you know what this is?" he asked her, delicately holding the flower between two fingers.

She looked up, baffled, before standing up to face him. "Oh, so you're talking to me now?" she asked harshly.

"Yes," he stated, and she frowned at him. For days, now, he hadn't said a word to her. That didn't keep him for talking to almost everyone else, always in hushed tones, always falling silent and walking away when she got near. Everyone seemed to explain something to him, and he listened to all of them intently. He looked so much like a studious schoolboy while listening she was surprised he didn't take notes. His peculiar behavior was slowly beginning to get on Kallian's nerves.

"Do you know what this is?" he repeated.

She looked down at his hand. "Yes. That's deathroot."

"It is. I want you to have it."

She looked at him warily. "So… you tried to kill me with your sword and failed, and so now you're just giving me poison?" she asked, confused.

"No. It is not my purpose. I was told that this is how I should proceed."

"Hum… proceed?"

"Yes. With an offering of flowers. I chose deathroot because it is practical, and you need it for your poisons. I thought you would appreciate it." He extended his hand further towards her, urging her to take the flower. She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.

"So this is an apology then? For questioning my leadership?"

He shuffled his feet. "No. Yes." A pause. "No."

"I see." She rubbed her eyes with her palms and took a deep breath. "For Andraste's sake, Sten, _you_ came up to _me_. I can't be annoying you right now, you _wanted_ to speak to me. Can you make an effort to be a little clearer?"

"Yes. You are small, and a woman."

She gaped at him in disbelief. "Well, yes, much, much clearer," she mumbled.

"I'm not finished. You are small, and a woman, and yet you bested me in single combat. You beat me, and then you spared me. It was a lot of unusual things to process."

"And so after much deliberation your logical conclusion was an offering of poisonous flower?"

"No." A pause. "Yes."

She growled in frustration and snatched the flower from his hands. "Thanks, I guess. Anything else, Sten?"

"Yes." He fumbled in a little pouch attached to his belt for a small box. "I was also told I should give you this. You are supposed to like it. Women like jewelry."

She took the little box slowly in her hands, staring at it in wonder. "It's… jewelry?" She gently opened the box and gasped. Inside was a stunning necklace with a silver chain and an amethyst pendant shaped like a heart. She took it delicately in her hands to examine it. The carving of the pendant was exquisitely detailed and beautiful, and she felt tears forming in her eyes. She blinked them away. "Sten, this is beautiful. You got this for me? How could you pay for it?"

"I didn't. I got it on the corpse of one of the merchants from the caravan we tried to save three days ago."

It took all of her self-control not to drop the gorgeous necklace on the ground. "You mean the caravan we were weeks late in rescuing? The dead merchants that had been left in the sun for days?"

"Yes. It was going to waste. Now it is yours." A pause. "I washed it."

She looked down at the necklace again. It was truly beautiful. She herself had more than one time taken something from corpses to give to her companions as gifts. They were usually much fresher corpses, but still…

"Thank you, Sten," she said, more softly than the first time. "It's beautiful." She put it back in the little box.

Sten frowned. "You are not putting it on?"

"Oh, no, it's much too nice to wear under armor. I'm going to keep it for a special occasion."

Sten nodded. "So you bested me and spared me and then found my soul back for me. You are small, and an elf, and a woman, but I call you Kadan, because I have no other words to express these… feelings of respect and admiration I have for you."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I can't believe you manage to make this sentence sound like a compliment. You're awfully chatty tonight, Sten."

"Yes. I have been encouraged to talk more. It has been pointed out to me that you find my voice and my accent… pleasing."

"_What_?" she exclaimed, and felt with horror her cheeks turning bright red. "Who told you… oh, Leli, you are so dead," she mumbled.

"You are blushing," he noticed. "That is good."

"Oh good, because that's not going to make it go away one bit." She felt mortified.

"So you like me better now?"

"What? You're doing all of this so I'll like you better?"

"Yes." He frowned at her. "I give you gifts and then you like me better. Isn't that how it works?"

She looked down at her hands, at the flower and box she was still holding. "Yes… I guess I like you a little better now, if only because I feel I know you better."

"Ah," he said, and seemed to relax a little. "I have… something else… wait here." He took off in the direction of his tent, leaving her standing there with her hands full of gifts.

"Weirdest… conversation… ever," she murmured to herself, looking around to see what the others were up to. She found out they were all very busy.

Staring at her.

Alistair was sitting next to Leliana and had an arm wrapped around her shoulders. He grinned at Kallian widely and gave her the thumps up. Leliana's smile was a strange combination of mischievous and tender, and she winked at her.

"You…" Kallian mouthed silently, pointing at Leliana, then slid a finger across her own throat in a "you're dead" gesture. Leliana's smile faded slightly.

Zevran and Oghren were sitting on the ground by Oghren's tent, apparently sharing a drink and enjoying the show very much. Kallian even glimpsed Morrigan spying on them in the distance where the witch had set up her own camp. Only Wynne was already in her tent for the night. "What is going on here?" Kallian murmured to herself, bewildered.

Sten came back, holding a little package wrapped in a clean cloth. "I was told candy was more traditional, but I couldn't find any. I had these. They will do." He extended the little package to her and she took it, delicately unwrapping the cloth.

"Oh, Sten, cookies? You're giving me your cookies?"

"Yes. They are as good as candy," he pointed out.

"So flowers and jewels and candy…" she murmured as something in her brain clicked. "Sten, you're trying to woo me?"

"It depends. Is it working?"

She looked down at the gifts, then up at him. He was staring at her so intently she felt she was losing herself in his eyes. He had such beautiful eyes… and a strong jaw, and firm lips… She shook herself.

"Mm… maybe," she finally stammered. "You know, I can't… I can't quite believe you like me."

"I don't like you."

"Oh." She looked down, staring at her gifts, not wanting to meet his eyes. "Oh."

"I have been told about this as well. This is where I put my feelings for you into words," he said, taking a little step closer to her. His tone got lower, the sound of his voice sending shivers down her spine.

"You are my better in combat. You are my comrade-in-arms, my leader. I call you Kadan. What I feel for you is respect, admiration."

"You said that already," she mumbled resentfully, still looking down. He slid two fingers under her chin, gently tilting her head back, forcing her to look at him.

"When you found me in the cage, in Lothering, this was not something new to me. Captivity. We Qunari never experience anything else. We can't choose who we are, what we want to be, who we fight. But you, you always encourage me to choose for myself, to question my motives, to wonder what it is that I want. What you give me is freedom, in more ways than one. With you, for the first time, I feel free."

Her eyes widened and she swallowed with some difficulty, suddenly finding it hard to speak.

"Oh."

"When we fight, you always have my back. When I am injured, you always take care of me. When I was incomplete, you turned the world over and found my soul and gave it back to me. With you, I feel safe."

"Oh." It was the only sound she seemed able to get out of her throat. She was lost in his deep penetrating eyes again, the intensity of his gaze on her making her blush deeper.

"When we are at camp and you come to speak to me, I can see how hard you try to understand my way of being. I tell you anything I think, anything I am, and you do not judge. You struggle to make sense of it. You see me for what I am and you are not afraid, you do not laugh at me or treat my beliefs as trivial. With you, I can be honest."

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Oh," she remembered to whisper.

"I watch you, when you walk, when you sit, when you stand, when you talk. You always shake your head a little when you laugh, as if you feel you shouldn't be laughing. You always tuck locks of hair behind your ears when you're trying really hard to be convincing. I watch you, and I know you. When I see you, when you are near, I feel warmth… here." He took her hand in his, put it over his heart. Her gaze fell down to his chest. His broad, muscular chest, barely covered with an almost translucent white cotton shirt. She could feel his heart beating wildly under her fingers. Or was it her own heart?

"I… well… it's… hum…" she managed to stutter, strangely hypnotized by her hand gently pressed on his chest. If she moved it a little, she'd be caressing him…

The fingers under her chin tilted her head back again. He took another step closer, his face bent over hers. "So, I do not _like_ you, Kadan. I love you."

"Oh. Oh!" she said, her eyes widening in surprise as he bent even closer.

"Now I'm going to kiss you," he said, his voice hoarse, his lips already so close to hers she felt his warm breath caress her skin.

"Oh… o-okay," she whispered softly.

He tilted her head back a little further and pressed his lips on hers. His kiss was soft, gentle, almost chaste at first, and she felt herself melt under his mouth. The tip of his tongue lightly caressed her bottom lip and she moaned softly, her head suddenly spinning wildly. Her knees buckled and she fell against him, felt his strong arms wrapped around her as he held her close, deepening the kiss.

When he ended the kiss she stood still for a while, her head tipped back, her eyes closed.

"Well?" he asked.

She licked her lips and opened her eyes slowly.

"I think you should have skipped the flower and jewel and cookies and gone straight to the speech," she said. "But the kiss was the best part."

"Hmph. I told them. They said I needed gifts. The bard actually wanted me to give you shoes. I told her you already had shoes, but she didn't listen. I practiced the speech with the assassin." He looked over his shoulder at Zevran. "How was I?"

"Perfect, my friend," Zevran laughed. "I think you have her convinced."

"Indeed." Sten brought his gaze back to her. She was eyeing him in mocked concern.

"You _practiced_ with him? Did you kiss him as well?"

Sten groaned. "Fortunately, I now have a way to make you _stop talking_," he growled, bending to kiss her again.

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_Author's notes II: So the prompt was to write a scene where a character who would never be able to profess their feelings for you does so. There was in fact multiple choices but that's the one I chose, because I wanted to try my hands at Sten. Hope you liked it! Happy Valentine's day everyone!_


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